What if you had back pain and your doctor told you: “Physical therapy could relieve your pain, and it offers other health benefits. Or you could do a very expensive surgery which comes with additional health risks and, I’m sorry to say, probably won’t help.” Would you:

Shell out the money to do the surgery first. If it doesn’t work you can always try physical therapy later.

Try the less expensive physical therapy first. If it doesn’t work, at least you gained the other health benefits and you can always try the surgery later.

Pay to do the surgery and the physical therapy at the same time.

Obviously option 2, right?

Portland faces a similar challenge. Congestion in the I-5 Rose Quarter Freeway is causing pain for drivers. Taxpayers could try one of the following options to try to reduce drivers’ pain:

Shell out at least $450 million for a mega freeway expansion. That’s a lot of money, and the project will likely cause other problems like increasing air pollution and climate pollution, and lots of experience (and here and here) says it won’t decrease congestion.

Try congestion pricing first. It is proven to reduce congestion, it could also reduce pollution, and the region (possibly subject to legal constraints) could use the revenue to give non-drivers more mobility options. Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) can still expand the freeway later, but by trying congestion pricing first, it could at least re-size the project to address whatever congestion remains after pricing.

Pay out the money to expand the freeway, but also try congestion pricing. All the risks and costs of freeway expansion, but with congestion pricing too.

On November 30 (this Thursday!) the Portland City Council will have the opportunity to go on record encouraging ODOT to do option b, try congestion pricing first before throwing away $450 million. But the council might choose option c, thinking it is a safe bet to support congestion pricing but also support the freeway expansion. Option c isn’t a safe bet, it is the worst of both worlds—the big price tag and the extra pollution will outweigh the potential benefits of congestion pricing, possibly generating backlash from drivers who are paying for the expansion through their tax dollars but also paying to drive, and more backlash from non-drivers who are paying for the expansion and the pollution.

There’s real world evidence that shows that road pricing could eliminate the need for billions in highway widenings. Look at Louisville Kentucky, which paid $1 billion to widen I-65 as it crosses the Ohio River (a route very similar to I-5) to reduce congestion. After finishing the project, they started charging drivers $1 to $2; traffic volumes fell by almost half from pre-construction levels. If they’d tolled first, they would have discovered that they didn’t need any additional lanes at all. Choosing option c instead of option b meant the city wasted $1 billion.

A Portland resolution along the lines of option b, urging ODOT to try congestion pricing before expensive expansion would not be out of line with state law. Oregon House Bill 2017 authorized the funds for the Rose Quarter expansion (the state expects to pay $30 million per year from 2022 through 2037 to pay for the megaproject). But the bill also requires the Oregon Transportation Commission to implement value pricing on the I-5 between the Washington state line and its intersection with I-205. The Oregon Transportation Commission must develop a pricing plan and seek federal approval no later than December 31, 2018. The Advisory Committee that will inform ODOT’s feasibility analysis of value pricing met for the first time on November 20.

If Oregon develops a pricing plan in 2018 and receives federal approval in 2019, it could conceivably implement pricing in 2020 and monitor the results before breaking ground on the megaproject. On November 30, the Portland City Council could nudge ODOT in that direction.

Portland and the state of Oregon had no problems throwing away $400+ million on a bridge that was never built and $500+ million on a health exchange that was never used. Why should they worry about $450 million for freeway expansion?

The proposed Congestion Pricing is just the latest government version of Screw Commuting Washington Workers. Most people who would be financially penalized by this do not have the ability to ride a bicycle, and 3 hours each way on a bus/light rail with poor connections (if any) to Clark County and beyond won’t work, either. And, guess what . . . the congestion southbound on I 5 and I 205 does not stop at I 84! That is just another excuse to penalize only the Clark County commuters. If you are really committed to relieving congestion without additional freeways, you have to toll all of I5, I205, I405, I84, US 26 and O217 in all the tricounty metro area during peak commuting hours. THAT would provide the money needed to do lots of other needed things and would be FAIR.

So how is it fair that I, as an Oregon resident who also works in my state, have to deal with your choice to move to a different state and live in a place that refuses to recognize its need to be a part of a multi-modal urbanized transportation system that includes light rail? Washington commuters are a significant part of Portland’s congestion problem, and you’ve not been paying your fair share. Nor have you been willing to be part of any type of solution. You simply expect Oregon to widen all of its freeways to accommodate your desired choices. Well, too bad.

Yes, we SHOULD have congestion pricing on all those expressways. Better to start somewhere than to continue putting off the issue. There are other ways to address the various other problems with the overall economic situation.

On a broad scale, congestion pricing might *not* hurt commuters because the existence of it is one factor that will reduce the home values for those far out enough to be necessarily impacted. People will pay more for a house where they can commute without tolls than for one where they commute with tolls. Alternatively, if tolls actually reduce congestion, then everyone benefits massively (especially the long-distance commuters) by the reduced congestion!

okay, good idea. Although to be fair the Commuting Washington Workers being Screwed are receiving a hidden double subsidy in that they don’t pay income tax and don’t contribute much to the cost of maintaining the roads they are Commuting on, so it seems reasonable to ask them to kick in a small amount for the public goods they are receiving.

I believe the proposed congestion pricing on both I-5 & I-205 stretches from the Columbia River to the southern point where the two freeways meet, just south of Tualatin. So, it’s not just Vancouver commuters, mostly, south of I-84. ODOT has State approval to widen an 8-mile stretch of I-205 from 2-lanes to 3-lanes; a questionable project if congestion pricing could reduce rush hour traffic.

Don’t you think that everyone who can move their commute to a less congested time has already done that to avoid the frustration? This just penalizes those without the freedom to move their start times, which apparently is a large percentage of the population.

The point of congestion pricing isn’t just to charge people, it’s to actually *reduce* congestion. The economic inequities are real, but avoiding congestion pricing is *not* the place to address them (although they should definitely be addressed).

Experience in other cities shows that some people who are willing to put up with gridlock are not willing to put up with paying. It only takes a handful of those shifting to another time or mode and the whole system gets moving again.

Where specifically has congestion pricing been implemented and there is now less congestion absent new infrastucture.

As I understand the Ohio River example, that involved using tolls to pay for new infrastructure. If you tried to pay the entire cost of widening I% with tolls, its likely you would get the same result. The economics just don’t work – you can’t set tolls high enough to pay for it.

Rose Quarter congestion is largely a result of the last congestion fix, widening I5 at Lombard. Once the Rose Quarter is fixed, the congestion will move to the next choke points – likely the Banfield, I405 and the Sunset. As well as the roads connecting the freeway exits to downtown. The real solution is to just accept congestion as transitory. It will disappear once we eliminate human drivers.

1) Congestion is a perfect marketplace. People suffer from congestion to the extent they are part of creating it. There are, of course, some public costs to people using motor vehicles. But congestion pricing is a lousy way to limit or recover those costs.

2) The basic premise is that people who can afford it will pay to get an uncongested road by forcing those who won’t pay off the road. There is a central issue of equity there. What is worse is that almost all tolling, including congestion pricing, does not raise enough money to actually pay the full cost of the facility. So not only are people who can’t afford it forced off the road, but their tax dollars are subsidizing the road for those who use it.

3) Congestion pricing depends on the idea that it will not induce demand. But there are plenty of people who avoid driving because of congestion who would be willing to pay for an uncongested road. What you end up doing is increasing the use of the road by people in SOV’s who can afford to pay at the expense of uses that have a larger public benefit.

The solution is to go back to one and tell people who complain about congestion that they should stop driving when it is congested. Then give them attractive alternatives whether its living closer to work or using transit. If they choose not to use those alternatives, its their problem.

Congestion pricing (or tolls) on I-5 and I-205 seem like a means to raise funds for the Columbia River I-5 Bridge replacement. I believe it’s necessary, but NOT with the double-deck design nor the horrible Concept ‘D’ access to Hayden Island. Single-deck bridge design (pre-2008) is fine, and a “Low-Level” access to Hayden Island (sans 3rd central underpass) is on record at Metro and City Hall. ODOT’s Marine Drive Interchange design is shovel ready. The local access bridge road is necessary for construction staging. And a MAX extension to a terminus on Hayden Island worth the cost. From there, BRT across the river to Vancouver Mall is simple enough.

Congestion pricing could affect the planned widening of Oregon’s Hwy 217 to 3 lanes. Along the corridor, the WES system could be converted to an extension of the MAX Red Line, which is lately proposed to extend from Beaverton to Hillsboro airport. I’ll propose this alternative: A new MAX line from Forest Grove (5 miles west of Hillsboro) to Beaverton then south on this Red Line extension along the WES corridor to Tigard, Tualatin, Wilsonville, (doubling the MAX service). This way, whether Hwy 217 is widened or not, MAX provides ideal transit service and more development potential than possible along Barbur Blvd which is more suited for BRT.

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